


as deadaly to the heart ass she is beatuiful

by pepperfield



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spy, F/F, Misunderstanding, Pining, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepperfield/pseuds/pepperfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time that the Rogue met her handler, she was drunk off her ass, her computer was in three pieces, and the room was on fire. She initially rated the day at about a 6 on her scale of Things I Don't Want to Experience Again, but Agent Crocker is cute, so she magnanimously lowered the score to a 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as deadaly to the heart ass she is beatuiful

Everything is too loud. Everything. Roxy's forehead is plastered to her desk in a desperate bid to avoid the horrible stream of fluorescent light assaulting her eyes. The thrum of computers humming around her is soothing, but every other sound, including the incessant clacking of keys and the weird whooshing noise that escapes from the ceiling is drilling a hole through her skull, right alongside her already pounding headache. God, she can feel her brains dribbling out her mouth, and it tastes disgusting.  
  
"Hey. Hey, LL, wake up. C'mon, Director Vantath ith coming down the hallway, thit up for a thecond and pretend you're paying attention."   
  
She groans and tries to slide under the table, but can't summon the energy. What was he saying? Stupid Sollux and his stupid pet bees and his stupid lisp that only comes out when he's nervous - wait why is he nervous -  _Director Vantas_ , shit, it's not the time to be hungover, Ro-Lal, let's pull it together now and pour your brainmush back into your thinkpan,  _fuck_ why is my neck twisted this way???  
  
Roxy cuts her internal monologue off when the Director storms in looking...pretty good, actually. His scruffy hair has been smoothed down and someone's succeeded in wrangling him into a tuxedo. She manages a wink at him, and a garbled "Looking sharp, boss." She doesn't try for the whole wink and finger gun combo because she's not Agent English, who should probably stop doing that, but everyone's too busy swooning their butts off to tell him. Seriously, if Roxy had all the ladies and fellas falling over themselves to please her, she wouldn't be squandering the attention like Jake English does. Not that the only lady that matters would be fawning over her, but still.  
  
The Director levels his bleary-eyed glare at her. "As much as I appreciate your unsolicited compliments and sleazy body language, Lalonde, I didn't come down here to put on a fashion show. First of all, do any of you know where the fuck Makara is?" After Agent Pyrope, Agent Makara is the Director's next in command. No one really knows what the hell he does around base, but there are stories of his horrifying combat ability. Some say he slaughtered eleven enemy agents with their own weapons. Others say he escaped from a desert prison after two months with a jar of his captors' blood and a smile on his face. The bodies were never found.  
  
"We last saw him going to the uranium storage with Dr. Harley," Sollux offers. His lisp has faded, now that he's more confident the Director isn't here to chew him out. Roxy shrinks down lower, sinking into her ergonomic desk chair, because she knows the same doesn't hold true for her.   
  
And sure enough, the Director's gaze swivels back to her after he nods at Sollux. "Second of all, you," he snaps out, with a vehement jab of his finger in her direction for emphasis, "need to get your drunk ass up to conference room 2. I don't have the time to counsel every moron who comes whinging to me about their idiotic problems _._ So whatever you fucked up with Crocker, unfuck it immediately so that she quits that melodramatic sighing and starts getting shit done again." With that, he spins on his heel and stomps out of the room.  
  
Roxy puddles out of her chair onto the floor with a melodramatic sigh of her own, and turns baleful eyes on Sollux, who reaches into his desk drawer and fishes out an extra pair of sunglasses for her. They aren't like his cool red and blue pair, but they do a proper job of stopping Roxy from wanting to claw her hangover out from her face.  
  
"You look like shit, LL. Even I can tell that you're more wasted than usual today. What gives?"  
  
"I screwed up with Jane, and now I have to go fix it." He awkwardly pats her on the arm; Sollux can be a pain, but he's a pretty cool guy and probably the best friend Roxy has in her department. "It's hard, Sollux, being in love with your handler. It's hard and god, I really want to upchuck all over my scarf."  
  
He shoves her out the door with a water bottle, a paper bag, and a few sage words. "Look, at least your girlfriend isn't a robot." Roxy supposes she should take comfort in that.  
  
\--  
  
The first time that the Rogue met her handler, she was drunk off her ass, her computer was in three pieces, and the room was on fire. She initially rated the day at about a 6 on her scale of Things I Don't Want to Experience Again, but Agent Crocker is cute, so she magnanimously lowered the score to a 4.  
  
She quickly discovered that Agent Crocker wasn't just cute, but also terribly competent, and more than a little stubborn.   
  
"You're going to join us, Miss Rogue, there's no two ways about it! It's just a question of when," Agent Crocker told her as they zoomed off away from the burning wreckage in a car being driven 20 mph above speed limit by a certain Agent V. The Rogue smelled like booze and ash, and her hair was a total mess, but her clothes were intact and her memory stick safe in her pocket. She looked a great deal worse than Agent Crocker, somehow, even though the other woman was splattered with the blood of terrorists and her suit ruined. Life was unfair that way.   
  
"Well, why don't you give me a reason to say yes, Agent?" The Rogue tossed out her sauciest wink, but just received a slap upside the head with a file folder for her efforts.  
  
"Settle down now, Miss Rogue. You'll receive your incentive back at the base." Her incentive turned out to be a pardon for her more audacious crimes, and, more importantly, free shelter, food, and liquor, so the Rogue found herself jumping to the side of lawfulness soon enough.  
  
Later, when the Rogue is just Roxy again (and it feels like ages since anyone's called her by that name besides Rose) and Agent Crocker allows her to be on a first-name basis, she realizes that Jane is also unfailingly loyal, sharp as the claws on Agent Leijon's gloves, and sometimes devastatingly nice. Roxy's pretty much screwed right out the gate, but that's not something she understands until a little further on.  
  
\--  
  
One time, they got stuck out in the snow on some stupid mountain that no one except some wacky weapons traffickers cared about. Roxy had been brought along since the mountain fortress had some pretty high-tech security to go along with the boatloads of armed guards stationed out in the cold. A whole team had been assembled to take down the complex, and Roxy got her job done, of course, but things had gone straight to hell anyway. Four explosions into the mission, and she'd taken refuge behind a downed helicopter, trying to stay out of the way of people brawling and the general chaos raging around her.  
  
Unfortunately, some tough looking bastard spotted her laying low, with her fluffy winter coat and computer clutched tight in her arms, and came gunning for her, figuring her for an easy, and important target, no doubt. So she'd had to do it. She grabbed a rifle up from some poor sucker lying dead in the snow and his own blood, and shot the oncoming guard right between the eyes. And it didn't stop with him; she offed three more in the next quarter of an hour, before Jane finally extricated herself from the fray and reinforcements came in.  
  
Jane had left Roxy for what was meant to be only a minute, and returned an hour later in an armored vehicle to zoom her off to where a medical team was ready to fly them back to base. Jane was missing her coat, her left leg was sporting a nasty gash, and a mottled bruise was forming on her temple, but still, all she could say was, "I'm so sorry, Roxy. I failed you as a handler; I should never have left you alone."  
  
"Of course you should've left me. That dude was getting his ass whooped, and probably would have kicked it if you didn't save him. Look, I'm okay, see? I'm fine, I'm fine," Roxy replied, voice betraying only the barest shakiness.   
  
"Yes, I can see that you fended for yourself quite well," Jane told her while wrapping a blanket around her shoulders, and she didn't look surprised, because why should she, she'd seen Roxy's shooting scores before. Even though practicing at the range was different from handling a gun during an actual mission, no one got as good as Roxy is without some firsthand, real life experience.  
  
"I can take care of myself, you know," and maybe she was a little sharper than she should have been, in an attempt to block out how rattled she really was. She felt deathly cold and strangely red all at once, but that may have been from the harsh scrape of the freezing wind against her cheeks. Her arms were circled tight around herself, to ward off the chill and to keep herself contained, because all she wanted to do was jump up and walk away from it all. Away from the death, and the loneliness, and endless fight for the greater good, and maybe even away from her handler.  
  
Jane looked at her with something that felt like pity, but deeper, and said, "But you shouldn't have to. That's what I'm here for." Roxy didn't have time to respond before a medic led Jane away with a syrette full of morphine. She wasn't sure of what to say anyway.  
  
\--  
  
"No, like, she's kind of super cute but also scary good at spying and infiltration and shit?"  
  
"I'm sure. And, tell me again, this is a matter of national security, how...?"  
  
"Um, it's crucial to the national security of my pants??"  
  
"That was disappointing. Overplayed, and the outcome didn't make much sense, nor was it particularly racy. I award you a 3.5."  
  
"Yeah, that was pretty weak."  
  
"In any case, why don't you simply, oh, I don't know, ask her out to dinner. Or is dinner too passe for people who work for hypothetical government agencies I don't know anything about?"  
  
"Uggghhh, Rosey, come on, as if you don't already know everything about everything, what even is the point in pretending I work for some lowly tech company chumps? Also, we go eat dinner all the time, but bffls do stuff like that, and I'm not even sure that I want to be anything other than friends? I dunno. Matters of the heart are total bullshit sometimes, I swear."  
  
"Hmmm. Well, this may not help fix your predicament, but consider this: you've never called me this often to talk about anyone else. I will neither encourage nor dissuade you from pursuing a relationship with her, since you already know all the consequences such an affair would entail, in much greater detail than I. But you should ask yourself, Roxy, what makes her different? And why does it affect you so?"  
  
\--  
  
The thing about Jane is that she sneaks up on people. Not literally, though of course she has the ability to do so; she'd be a shitty agent if she couldn't. No, Jane Crocker seems straightforward and down to earth and unassuming, which Roxy likes about her, and which she had expected to like about her. But Jane keeps her shifting layers of unpredictability tucked away where no one can see them unless they're looking, or she lets loose. And it's that spark of hidden liveliness that draws Roxy in and refuses to let her go.  
  
It's in the way Jane breaks into the hospital wing to visit her asset while wearing a silly hat and a sillier mustache. Roxy had broken her leg and acquired a minor head injury after a bad tumble from the fire escape of a targeted building, and Jane had carried her to the medics herself. It was long past midnight, but for once Roxy couldn't sleep, and neither could she code because her mind was a bit addled, what with the morphine, and one or two fingers were sprained. So she settled for staring blankly ahead, plotting out steamy wizard fiction in her head, until a shadowy figure slipped in through the locked door. Roxy almost attacked her supposed assailant with her IV drip before she made out the face of her handler under the bushy facial hair. Jane kept up the charade for a little longer ("I have no idea who this Miss Crocker is, hoo hoo! The name's Egbert, and I'm a businessman, you see." "Just cause I have a concust-consusstion...just cause I got whacked in the head doesn't mean I'm now dumb as a brick, Janey.") before pulling up a chair and talking Roxy gently into sleep.  
  
It's in the genuine excitement Jane feels when they visit new countries for a mission, even when she should be apprehensive or jaded. Or the way she can babble on about her favorite detective novels and pull off a strangely charming noir P.I. drawl. These little things shouldn't dazzle Roxy, but they do. Somehow, when she's parked in a tiny room at 4 a.m., going on 33 hours without any sleep, and Jane brings her a soft pillow and a large slice of cake, these little things mean absolutely everything and it's hard to remember that she used to know how to live without Jane.  
  
Roxy hadn't intended to fall in love. Rogues don't do that kind of thing. They're supposed to hold their freedom close; act flirty, but distant. But she'd never really stood a chance, not under the quiet force of those bright blue eyes and that steady smile.   
  
So, even if she ignores all the rules of professionalism, and throws the policies on fraternization out the window (actually, it's apparently not that big of a deal) there's still this whole problem of _not being good enough_. Because Jane is, well, Jane is amazing. She can flip an enemy spy over her shoulder while removing a tray of cookies from the oven; she's got that natural mix of soft touch and stern words that makes people want to listen to her; and perhaps best of all, she knows when her asset just needs a hug.  
  
And Roxy? Roxy's a deadbeat drunk hacker with enough skill and just enough overconfidence to tip the government off to her activities, and the luck to be offered a job instead of culled for treason. She's a bundle of quirks and a boatload of intelligence all drowning under an inebriated mask of typos and over the top flirtations. She's a mess. Roxy knows how to reach out to people, but she doesn't know how to let them in, and maybe that's for the best. Because what does she really have to offer anyone, let alone Jane, who's flawed enough to be real, but still infinitely too good for her?  
  
 _Please_ , she wants to say,  _please, can't you look in my direction? I am in orbit around you; I am your moon, please, just let me be a part of you again, we were never meant to be separate._  
  
But, if nothing else, Roxy's got a bit of pride left in her that stops her from spewing out confessions that prove she's as needy as a box of abandoned kittens. So she sloshes her feelings back down with a mouthful of vodka, pretending that she doesn't give it all away just by looking at Jane.  
  
\--  
  
Jane had become more...handsy recently, which, in Roxy's opinion, was a mixed bag of double-edged swords and other confused phrases. It was great, because contact with Jane was always great. But then, it also totally sucked because there were only so many best friendlystyle hugs and pats on the arm and lingering hands at the small of one's back that a person could take without building up a whole reservoir of frustration. Roxy's dam was going to break eventually, and she was pretty sure the end result wasn't going to be pretty.  
  
She couldn't very well just ignore it, but she wasn't inclined to do much about it either. The obvious solution was to form a hypothesis and then observe, but since her list of tentative hypotheses (jane is dynig of tertminal illness?? brushing lint of my clothrs? in love w/ me lolololololnoooooo), she settled for cataloging Jane's new behavior and figure out where to go from there.  
  
observatoins of U KNO WHAT, entry 1  
  
1)  ~~may 12th, 0735: brought diner down to lab and touched hands for >5 secs~~  prob readig too much into this??  
  
2) may 16th, 04??: fell asleep @ dsk and woke up w/ J's head on shouldesr  
     - addituinal note: J rly cute when sleeping omgomg (like snuffly bunnyy cute)  
  
3) may 25th, 1300: J persoanally helped me try on new gear (no wandernig fingers/groping tho)  
  
4( june 2nf, 1715: J handfed me fresh baked cookiees   
     - adsitoinal note: DS says he's been guunea pig *guinaie *fuckit for bakin exprmints thruout week (more data needed)  
  
5) june 8th, ????: asdlkfjahslkdjf??!?!?!!!!???????  
     - alskdjflaksfj note: wast hat a kiss?!??  
     - note2: FALSIE ALARM  
  
6) june 9th, 0912: J held my hair an hand whilew pukin in bathroom liek a sweetie <3  
  
  
conculusions  
  
1) idek  
  
  
After a month, Roxy decided that no logical conclusion could be reached, especially since she never chose a hypothesis. She would have to gather more data.  
  
\--  
  
Everything fell apart when Roxy met Agent English.  
  
Jake English, one part dashing, one part dangerous, and two parts endearingly dorky, returned from some sort of top secret mission in the Pacific halfway through Roxy's second year at the agency. They almost crashed into each other, actually, in some strange parody of a romantic comedy, if not for Jake's quick sidestep. Roxy was still on a collision course with the ground, but at the last second turned into one of those ground rolls that Jane taught her in physical training.  
  
"Very well executed!" English told her cheerily and hefted her up from the ground when she was done somersaulting down the hallway. A year ago, having a fateful meeting with a handsome young stranger would have set Roxy's heart aflutter (and the paranoid bells in her head aringing), but now any and all gooey, debilitating affections are directed at one person only. But Agent English is earnest and easy to talk to, with his boundless energy and quaint little accent. Roxy finds that she really likes him a good deal, and he's got tons of vaguely censored stories to tell her about his field missions. She'd heard a few things about him before, mostly from Doc Harley and Dirk from R&D, but never from Jane, oddly enough, since English seems to know her well.  
  
So, of course she brought him up in conversation the next time she saw her handler. Jane's reaction was...interesting.  
  
"Oh, you've met Jake, then? I'm sure that was an experience!" She smiled fondly to herself as she set up a practice dummy for her hacker to punch. But Roxy could tell it was different from the emotion Jane got when she talked about Dirk, with whom she's surprisingly good friends. There was a sort of wistfulness to this smile, and it was literally painful to look at, like ripping stitches on her heart open one by one. It looked an awful lot like the way Roxy smiled at Jane, in fact, and to see it as a reaction to someone else's name, well, that was an unnecessary reminder of how hopeless her own situation was. There was some history there, and Roxy didn't like it one bit.  
  
She only meant to say the next few words to test her theory, but that's when things got out of hand. "Yeah, Jake's great! That guy's been doing some crazy shit out on Skull Island or wherever. Oh yeah, and he gave me this neat souvenir to give to you, lemme go find it." And as she went scrounging through her bag, she dropped the topic in, casually as she could, "So, uh, do you know if he's single? Cause, I gotta say, this business is really working out for him. He's got a  _fine..._  
everything, actually. Bet his abs are sweet."  
  
And there it was, a dull blush spreading across Jane's face. "Oh! Um, yes, as far as I know, Jake isn't seeing anyone. At the moment." Her words were calm, but Roxy could see in the minute movements of her hands and her refusal to make eye contact that she was flustered. Upset, even.  
  
 _Oh_. She'd asked, and she'd gotten her incontrovertible proof. Jane used to have a thing for Jake English. Jane probably still had a thing for Jake English. And Roxy, forming a half-baked plan in her head and running with it, knew what she had to do. Because she may have thought she was in love, but sometimes a girl just knows when there's no hope. So she would do the smart thing. She would set up Jake and Jane, because he's a good guy, and she's a great gal, and then they would have adorable spy babies together, and Roxy would overcome her stupid crush and things would be fanfuckingtasting from there on out. Flawless reasoning, someone give Lalonde a medal.  
  
"Great! Then I should be able to set this up without nary a problem," she informed Jane with false cheer and a clap on her shoulder for good measure, before shoving a gift-wrapped skull into her hands. "Cap'n Ro-Lal's gonna sail this ship right into the harbor, just you watch Janey, I've got everything covered." Jane just looked sort of confused and sad, and Roxy knew it was her fault from bringing up old lost loves, but she was going to take care of things, and it would be sunshine and rainbows for everybody.  
  
Except after that day, it became bizarrely difficult to find Jane. Roxy knew that her best friend had mad ninja skillz up the wazoo, but Jane had never used them on  _her_  before, and she honestly had no idea why she was being avoided now. It was impossible to set up a date with Jake when Jane had disappeared into thin air, so she told Jake she'd have to give him a raincheck on the date thing (he just responded with a good-natured thumbs up) and spent the next week trying to find her suddenly scarce handler. Unfortunately, things had been quiet lately, and there were no field missions to go on, so she couldn't force Jane into the open. Instead, she put the tracking lessons she'd received from Agent Leijon into good use and skulked around until she found Jane hiding in an unused storage room outside of Dirk's lab.  
  
"Please get Crocker out of there. It's starting to smell like a bakery, and that's distracting everyone. Or mostly just me."  
  
Roxy gave him a sharp salute before opening the door gingerly. Jane was sitting in the corner, reading a book about ponies targeted at preteen girls and smashing a ball of raw cookie dough between her fingers.  
  
"Heeeyyy, Janey, I've been lookin' all over for you. What are you doing moping alone down here?" If anyone deserved to be moping, it was Roxy, not Miss Cookiehands.  
  
Jane looked up at her, with a look that shredded what remained of Roxy's internal organs into ribbons. No more heart, no more kidneys, no more liver, though that last one was likely due to longterm alcoholism more than anything else. Jane just looked so destitute, which was utterly unwarranted, because didn't she understand that Roxy would be sorting out her romantic woes soon enough? She was about to speak, but Jane cut her off.  
  
"I'm sorry, Roxy, for avoiding you this past week, but I just can't bear to see you right now. This isn't your fault at all, I'm just being stupid, but please, just give me one more day, okay? I swear things will be back to normal tomorrow." She stood up and reached tentatively out, as if to offer Roxy a hug, but then drew back just as quickly, probably because of the cookie dough all over her hands. Then she fled from the room before Roxy could stop her.  
  
More confused than ever, she trailed after Jane's speedy departure and stopped by Dirk's lab to unleash her "what the fuck is my life" expression onto him, since no one else was around to see it. Dirk, being a sweet bro, offered her a bottle of absinthe he had stashed in a cupboard. "I was going to save this for your birthday, but things look pretty dire now. Try not to die, though. I'll call you every few hours, and if you don't respond, I'm going to break into your residence," he warned her. She hugged him tight before wandering back to her onsite apartment with her new best friend, which was half gone by the time she woke up the next morning and dragged her sorry behind off to the computer lounge.  
  
\--  
  
All this hullabaloo is why Roxy's now hesitating outside conference room 2, water bottle and bag in one hand, with the other hovering over the door. She's been standing here a good minute and a half, too much of a coward to enter, but too proud to turn back.  
  
"I can see you through the glass panel, you know," Jane's voice informs her from inside the room. Whoops, that's kind of embarrassing.  
  
Roxy steels her gut and swings the door open with too much force, and it starts to bounce back at her, but she barges on past while whipping her sunglasses off with dramatic flair and gets a bruise on her hip for it. "Ow."  
  
Jane is sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair with her hands folded on top of the conference table. Roxy hops up onto the table and rests her feet in the chair next to Jane's, trying not to get too close to her, but unwilling to sit any farther away. "So..." she begins but trails off because she doesn't know how to apologize for this unknown crime.  
  
She's saved from pointless babbling when Jane tells her, calmly, but curtly, "I'm sorry that I got upset and took it out on you. That was unfair. I hope you enjoyed your date with Jake."  
  
"Uh. What?" Exactly zero of the words she just said make any sense together.  
  
Jane furrows her brow, and repeats, "Your date? I shouldn't have let my jealousy overwhelm me like that, and it's really my fault for not acting on my feelings sooner, so I'm trying - well, you're both two of my closest friends, so of course I'm happy that you've found each other. Yes." She sits back and stares expectantly at Roxy, who frowns.  
  
"No, like, I don't think you understand. I actually have  _no idea_  what you are trying to say to me right now. When did I go on a date with Jake? I'm pretty sure I would remember that, not that it's a thing that would've happened."  
  
Now it's Jane's turn to be baffled. "Why, you said just last week that you were going to pursue a relationship with him! Did it not work out?" She looks concerned, but slightly triumphant too. Roxy throws her hands up in the air, and tosses the glasses behind her and the water bottle into the wall by accident.  
  
"Ugh, no Janey, were you paying attention at all? I was pursuing a relationship with Jake for you! As in, a relationship between the two of you! With me nowhere involved!"  
  
"What? Why on Earth would you do that?"  
  
"Um, because you are  _clearly_  still head over teakettle in love with the doofus, and also def waaaay too shy and/or a tightass to do something about it, so I, being your best bestie was gonna just give you the push you needed. You can thank me for this huge favor by making sure there's an open bar at your wedding."   
  
Jane stands up abruptly and shoves her chair out of the way. "No, it's becoming obvious to me that  _you_ don't understand! Where did you ever get the idea that I'm in love with  _Jake_?"  
  
By now, Roxy has jumped off the desk to gesticulate wildly in Jane's direction. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because you've never mentioned him to me and you get this weird, sad look when we talked about him being single? These are  _signs_ , Jane! You're sending up like a million dating sim red flags here! You're projecting 'tragically unrequited past love' signals all over the place!"  
  
"Okay, fine, you've somehow managed to piece together that I perhaps used to have feelings for Jake, but that was years ago! We're just friends now!" Jane places her hands on Roxy's shoulders, trying ineffectively to calm her down.  
  
"No, nononono, that was  _not_  a 'just friends' look, Jane. I would know. You are pining the fuck away for  _someone_ , and if it's not Jake English, then who the hell is it?!"  
  
"It's  _you_ , Roxy, you infuriating, ridiculous girl!  _How is it possible that you haven't noticed?_ "   
  
Roxy freezes in place, trying to parse Jane's words. "The fuck?"  
  
Jane lets her hands fall back to her sides and steps back. She looks exhausted, and her eyes are red, and how hadn't Roxy seen this before?  
  
"Thirteen months, Roxy. It's been thirteen months, and it's driving me up the wall, but I can't stop, okay? I've tried, believe me, I've tried so hard to give up, or to pretend it's nothing, just like I did with Jake, because if it worked once, it should work again, right? But it's not the same with you. You're impossibly vibrant and brilliant and you mean well and you're so kindhearted, even though you're completely absurd half the time, and drunk the other half, and god, I should be able to shut my feelings off, this is the kind of thing they teach you in training, but somehow, every single time, you manage to find your way back in, and I'm tired of it.  
  
Trying to hide it all the time was so draining that I told myself myself it was time to stop being shy, and hoped that maybe, for some crazy reason, you'd feel the same way. But that's just it; nothing's changed, and I was stupid for thinking it would, because there was never a chance in hell, and I should've known. And I'm sorry, for everything, for putting this pressure on you, for lying to you, and avoiding you, and just everything. I'm sorry."  
  
She looks away from Roxy then, and adjusts her glasses. Roxy has seen this movement enough to know what she's doing; Jane is going to straighten her back, smooth out the creases in her sleeves, and then the mask will come silently back down. And Jane is nothing if not professional, so once her hair is back in place and her mouth set in that firm line, it'll be as if none of this ever happened, and Roxy's not going to let her get away with that. So she leaps forward and crushes her best friend into a hug, trying to buy time for her brain to catch up to whatever the fuck is going on here. Roxy may be damn smart, but sometimes it takes her longer to process words than code, especially after unexpected heartfelt confessions.  
  
"Roxy, stop, I don't need a pity hug," Jane mumbles into her shoulder and halfheartedly tries to wriggle out, but Roxy has latched on securely.  
  
"This is totally different from a pity hug, Janey. This is an apology hug. I'm sorry for being stupid and I'm sorry that you think you need to apologize for anything." She presses her face in Jane's dark hair, trying to breathe in everything about her. Jane's arms come up to wrap loosely around her waist.  
  
"Okay, but-"  
  
"No, just listen for a sec, 'kay? We've been acting dumb, when really all along we should've just talked about this like actual functioning human beings. Look, how do I put this? Do you remember last year, when I was stuck in that bunker after those dudes kidnapped me for science, and you came bustin' in like some sort of superhero stabbing people with that stupid fork thing, even though everyone thought I must have been dead? That's when I was sure, okay, because you just gave zero fucks about what your other spy analyst peeps were telling you, and came for me anyway, and don't get me wrong, sometimes it's reeeeeaaally annoying when you don't listen, but I'm pretty sure that when you came flying in gloriously lookin' all chill as fuck covered in blood, I became 112% certain." She stops to gather her wits and her breath.  
  
Jane's hands clasp together behind Roxy's back. "Certain of what?"  
  
"Of, y'know, of being in love with you."  
  
Somehow she never realized that it could be that easy to say. They both stand still for a minute, until Jane breaks the silence with a sigh.  
  
"Well, it's my job to keep you safe. Anyway, life-threatening situations tend to endear people to one another if they both escape more or less intact." Roxy can feel Jane smiling against her neck, leaving the slightest warmth from the press of her lips.  
  
"But it's not just that! It's also because you do ridic stuff like joy-buzzering poor old Dr. Zahhak and that thing with Agent Slick and the trick knife. And you always know the right type of donut to get me, and you know how to talk Sollux out of his moods, and you are basically perfect?? But somehow you can't  _see_  that, and I know I'm not so great at much besides hacking, but I really, really want to be the person who gets to keep reminding you of how amazing you are. If that's okay with you."  
  
Jane breaks out of Roxy's grasp to press their foreheads together and stare her straight in the eyes. Up close, Jane's eyes are so very blue, just shy of a perfect summer's sky, and Roxy is transfixed; if ever there were a time, before, that she had been able to look away from Jane Crocker, it no longer matters, because it is impossible now. She is maddeningly, irrevocably in love.  
  
"Oh, Roxy, if there's anyone here who can't see themselves clearly, it is you. You're reckless and you sleepwalk, and you start drinking at incomprehensible hours of the day, yes, but you're also clever and brave, and you care, more than anyone I've ever known. For you, everyone matters: civilians, agents, cats, the homeless. And in this job, seeing someone as fundamentally  _good_  as you are - and that's what you are, Roxy, for all that you don't believe it because of what you used to be - is breathtaking to me. So, if you're really choosing me, then of course I accept."  
  
Jane slides Roxy's hand into hers and brings them both up to press against her cheek, with a small smile. Roxy lets her eyes close, for just a second, as she leans into Jane and remembers how to breathe.  
  
"You mean it?" she asks, eyes still shut.  
  
"Yeah." After she hears that, the answer she never hoped could be possible, the planet doesn't shift on its axis, mountains don't crumble, and the seas don't rise. But all the same, when she opens her eyes again and sees Jane's smile, the world seems just a little brighter.  
  
Roxy sees no reason not to go for broke then, and leans in for a kiss, but can't help laughing when their lips meet. "We really are a couple of dumbasses, aren't we? Could've been doing this ages ago." Jane giggles against the corner of Roxy's mouth, before pulling her into a proper kiss.  
  
They would probably have stared stupidly at each other for another few minutes, but the door swings open and Agent Makara pokes his head in, wearing his typical, half-lidded, pleased expression. "Either of you good sisters know where a motherfucker might be gettin' to if he wants to find the directorbrother?"  
  
"Uhhhh he went lookin' for you down at Doc Harley's lab," Roxy manages to splutter out despite her rapidly beating heart. Holy fuck, that guy is scary.  
  
"Coooool. Keep up the beautiful love and shit. Motherfuckin' peace, sisters." Agent Makara waves lazily at them and ambles back out, the door slamming shut behind him.  
  
Jane smooths Roxy's hair down, away from her face. "Hoo! He gave you a bit of a fright, didn't he? Don't worry, I won't let that clown do anything to you."  
  
"Yeah? Are you gonna be my strong and sexy protector? I'm blushing, Janey, look at my cheeks, they're pink as a baby's butt. Hold me, I'm swooning."  
  
"Inaccessible similes notwithstanding, yes, it would behoove me to keep you in one piece, for both professional and selfish reasons. Whoa, aim your swoon in this direction, please." Jane kneels down and scoops Roxy up into her arms, and bustles out the door. "Since Agent Makara aptly demonstrated that this is, in fact, not a secure location, let's go somewhere more private for the rest of this conversation."  
  
"Ohmygod, bridal style carry right over the threshold. This is the happiest day of my life, I'm seriously cryin' tears of joy."  
  
"That's a much happier outcome than either of us anticipated, I bet! Now come on, you have to help me eat the pity cake I baked for myself. We can redecorate it first."  
  
Roxy loops her arms around Jane's neck and presses a kiss to her collarbone. "We can do whatever the hell you want. That's the way it goes with happily ever afters." And a happily ever after is what they get, more or less, with the occasional explosion and last-minute rescue thrown in.


End file.
